It's Only Life
by Rose's Heart
Summary: *** Peyton is hurt. Lucas is gone. Brooke is crashing, until an unknown saviour's words give her the strength to pick herself up. Please R&R! ***


*** WARNING! Anyone reading this should have seen season 3, but if not, it goes contain MINOR spoilers. Just keep taht in mind! So, go watch the show, and THEN read it! =P

*** Hey everyone =) I just wanted to put out there that I am a DIE HARD Lucas/Peyton fan, but... idk, this one just came to me...actually, I wrote it for a provincial exam I had just after I watched the episode where Keith got shot. Can you tell that I had OTH on the brain? Anyways, I would love to hear what you think! Comments are always appreciated. Please R&R!

*** PS: This is just a short oneshot, but I really enjoyed writing it. More shot things like this may be on the way, but I don't think that any off this story will be coming.

**It's Only Life**

Brooke rushed into the bathroom, the door snapping shut of her heels. She was pitched forward on to the hard and icy linoleum floor, makeup flying out of her Gucci bag, and books splaying everywhere. Brooke's straight and perfect ivory nose broke her fall, and blood flowed out in scarlet rivers. Scrambling up, dark tresses swinging in front of her eyes, Brooke managed to grab a tissue from a nearby toilet stall and stop the flow of liquid.

Leaving the bathroom stall, Brooke walked to the sink, looked in the mirror, and promptly burst into tears.

Nothing was going right. Her normally smooth and beautiful skin was speckled with blood, and was steadily becoming blotchy from the tears racing down her cheeks in endless floods.

Today, of all days. All right, so there was nothing extraordinarily special about today, other than the fact that it was quickly turning disastrous. It had started out so well though; Brooke had had a great feeling about today.

Look how that was turning out.

Peyton, Brooke's best friend, was in the hospital. The recent school shooting had left her seriously injured. Lucas was on the lamb, having disappeared after the psycho shooter had killed his uncle Keith, before taking his own life. Brooke's clothing line was proving to be more than even she could handle, and, really, all she wanted was to have her boy, and her girl, beside her.

Brooke turned around, and sunk to the ground, knees pulled to her chest. Sobs wracked her body. Wishing desperately that Peyton was here to hold her hand, Brooke reached into her jeans pocket and grabbed her cell. Dialing Lucas' number without looking, Brooke rubbed the back of her hand against her soaked cheeks, shuddering slightly as she tried to calm down.

"Lucas needs to hear how Peyton's doing..." Brooke said under her breath, attempting to convince herself that was the reason she was calling Lucas yet again.

Who was she kidding?

If Lucas didn't know about Peyton's condition, and physiotherapy, and how much Brooke needed to come home by now, it was through no fault of Brooke's. She'd only left 12 messages since he left a week ago.

The tinny voice reporting that Lucas' number was out of service nearly through Brooke back into a pit of hysterics. She held herself back, though, not permitting the dark waves of despair to overwhelm her. This whole crying thing was going no where. There was no way she was going to spend study block on the floor of the girl's bathroom, when she could be at the hospital with Peyton, keeping both of their spirits up.

Brooke gathered her books, and shoved the contents of her purse back into the bag, still crying softly. Grabbing hold of the sink ledge, Brooke heaved herself up, catching glimpse of something she hadn't noticed before as she did so.

There, in the lower right hand corner of the mirror scrawled in red lipstick. Leaning forward slightly to interpret the smudged words, Brooke smiled her first true smile of the day.

Standing up straight, Brooke looked at her reflection in the mirror and read the quote out loud.

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times," Brooke grinned as a thought came to her, and she reached into her purse and added her own words to the mirror.

Finishing with a flourish, Brooke smiled again.

Peyton would be okay, Brooke had to believe that. Together, they'd make it through physio, and be together, laughing again soon.

Lucas would be back, Brooke could feel it. There would be hard times, no denying it, but they'd work through them as the couple they were.

As for her clothing line ... well, Brooke would figure it out. The clothes were amazing, everyone knew it. The business side would just take a little learning. Brooke was young. One of these days, she'd figure it out.

Washing the last of the blood off her face, Brooke took one more look in the mirror, and liked what she saw, before finally walking out of the bathroom, the school, and to the the hospital, to see her best friend.

The bathroom seemed to shudder, void at last of all emotions. Brooke and her unknown savior's words beamed into out into the room, a ray of hope for anyone who could find it, and use it.

"It was the best of times," they said, "it was the worst of times."

Brooke's words shone, written in a slightly darker shade than the others. "But it was just high school."

Even the bathroom seemed to smile.


End file.
